The One Before
by navigated
Summary: "And then fire shot down, from the sky in bolts like shining blades of a knife." \bookverse\


When Howl Jenkins had heard that his son was born, the first thing he wanted to know was what color his hair was. All things considered, it shouldn't have been difficult, his son was a cat at the time. When he learned that his child was born entirely pitch black, Howl could not have been happier.

He dreaded the day his child was born, not out of fear of being an inadequate father, or perhaps failing as a husband, it was the fear that their child would be just like Howell Jenkins. Howell. There were reasons he changed his appearance to the extent that he did. The will to distance himself from Howell Jenkins was so great, that he feared the man for his own son. It was ridiculous, but if he wished anything for his son, he wished that he would be nothing like the man he used to be.

"_All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring"_

Morgan was something of a troublesome child. Though being Howl's son, this was to be expected. At a young age, clearly favored his mother. It wasn't too surprising, as they had spent a good deal of time together as cats, but when the time came for Morgan to be the human baby he really was, there was certainly a period of resistance. He couldn't move nearly as well as he was used to and was cooped up in a crib of taking shaky steps about the castle, gripping the hearth of the fire place for balance, Calcifer peering out his logs at the child. When he'd fall he'd burst into tears, clearly frustrated by his inability to be as mobile he was many months before.

He was a stubborn child. Again, being the son of Howl Jenkins, one is almost genetically inclined to be such.

He refused to sit in the high chair that had been given to them by Fanny. He wished to sit in the chairs like his mother, father and Michael sat in. And so, in a moment in complete ingenuity (and genuine care for his son's happiness) Howl put a chair up on a box and sat Morgan in it. While he slid out the bottom and slunk off when his mother told him to eat his vegetables, the idea still had good intentions. The vegetables he said he ate would turn up in potted plants, in Sophie's flower arrangements, or – in a moment of ingenuity that made Howl proud and made Sophie scold him for encouraging Morgan's bad behavior – inside a hollowed log set to be given to Calcifer with in the next few days.

Morgan was an indecisive child, just like his father before him. Morgan showed a great potential to use magic, but never seemed interested in his father's profession, or in his mother's ability to talk the grass stains out of the knees of his pants. One week he wanted to be a sailor, a not magical sailor. Another week he wanted to be a cobbler, a not magical cobbler. It changed from week to week, but it seemed that Morgan never settled on Wizard. Which was all fine with Howl, as while he would prefer his son follow in his footsteps, he understood what it was to have someone force you into what they wanted you to be.

They hardly visited his sister for that reason alone.

Visting his Aunt Megan on his 4th birthday got him a scolding for blowing a raspberry at her and sulking out in the mud for the afternoon (Neil eventually plopped down with them and the day was saved) for no particular reason outside of being told to wash up for lunch. While Sophie, simply to save face had her son sit in the corner for 5 minutes to think about what he had done, that night Howl and Morgan shared the last of the birthday cake after Morgan was supposed to be tucked in for the night. An unspoken reward. One of the many things Morgan would be told "Don't tell your mother" over the course of his life time.

When they returned home the next morning Morgan asked, quite politely, if they ever went back to Aunt Megan's, if they could go when Aunt Megan wasn't there. Which only garnered stern looks in Howl's direction.

When Morgan turned 5 he disappeared from the castle for all of 4 hours. When he returned, he was happy as could be, smiling widely and hugging his mother around the knees. It was only when Sophie brought him into the bathroom for his bath, she realized something was amiss. Howl's meticulously ordered bottles were strewn all over the floor, and the unusually stiffness of Morgan's hair turned to be nothing but shoe polish as it ran from his hair and into the basin as Sophie scrubbed, revealing bright sky blue hair sprouting from her son's head. Yet again, stern looks, and even sterner words were exchanged with her husband.

But it was on Morgan's 8th birthday, while watching the stars from the sky in the large field out the blue door, when he said very seriously to his father; "I'm going to catch one some day" That Howl realized, despite all his fears that his son would be that version of himself that he couldn't stand, that his son was that man. And that despite all of Howl's attempts to escape that, he had always been Howell Jenkins. And that perhaps, for his son's sake, that man wasn't so bad.


End file.
